Ready and waiting: Elon receiver prepared for NFL Draft call

Aaron Mellette

By Adam Smith / Times-News

Published: Friday, April 26, 2013 at 12:59 AM.

Time and again during the last two weeks, Aaron Mellette has answered his cell phone and found NFL teams on the other end of the line — personnel departments double-checking contact info, scouts touching base with last-minute, pre-draft questions.

The call that can’t get here quick enough, that will realize dreams and instantly transform the Elon University receiver into a professional football player, should be coming before Saturday ends.

And Mellette, his phone charger standing by within reach, is ready.

“The last thing I’m going to do is miss that phone call,” he said. “Since December, this has been like the longest five months of my life just to get to these next few days.”

The first round of the NFL Draft was held Thursday night. The second and third rounds will be conducted tonight, followed by Rounds 4 through 7 on Saturday.

Things figure to settle into focus for Mellette on that last day of the draft. Once pegged as high as a second-rounder prior to last season, the 23-year-old now is projected to be picked anywhere from the fourth to the sixth round.

Not that he has been burning up the Internet, poring over mock drafts of where he might be selected.

Time and again during the last two weeks, Aaron Mellette has answered his cell phone and found NFL teams on the other end of the line — personnel departments double-checking contact info, scouts touching base with last-minute, pre-draft questions.

The call that can’t get here quick enough, that will realize dreams and instantly transform the Elon University receiver into a professional football player, should be coming before Saturday ends.

And Mellette, his phone charger standing by within reach, is ready.

“The last thing I’m going to do is miss that phone call,” he said. “Since December, this has been like the longest five months of my life just to get to these next few days.”

The first round of the NFL Draft was held Thursday night. The second and third rounds will be conducted tonight, followed by Rounds 4 through 7 on Saturday.

Things figure to settle into focus for Mellette on that last day of the draft. Once pegged as high as a second-rounder prior to last season, the 23-year-old now is projected to be picked anywhere from the fourth to the sixth round.

Not that he has been burning up the Internet, poring over mock drafts of where he might be selected.

“I haven’t looked at one of those since the summertime,” he said. “My agent called me the other day to tell me different scenarios. I don’t really care about that stuff. I just want to get in somewhere and play, because you have to prove it on the field, no matter where you’re drafted at.”

Only one Elon product — Chad Nkang, a seventh-rounder in 2007 — has been chosen in the last 20 NFL Drafts. Nkang was picked five spots from the end six years ago, so Mellette likely is on the verge of becoming Elon’s highest draftee since 1984 (when Jimmy Smith went in the fourth round).

“I’m calm about it right now. Just relaxed,” Mellette said. “I feel like I earned this moment to be drafted this weekend. I probably won’t get real excited until I get to hear my named called.”

Jeff Whitney, vice president of Dow Lohnes Sports & Entertainment, the agency that represents Mellette, paused during draft preparations this week in New York City and said his group “couldn’t be prouder of the way” the Elon receiver has handled this process.

“He’s a special guy and I think he’s done great things for himself,” Whitney said. “It’s been great, a great experience, and he’s done everything he can do that’s under his control.

“Now we just have to wait and see. The draft is the most inexact science in the world. There’s absolutely no way to know.”

The 6-foot-3, 217-pound Mellette had private workouts at Elon with the Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts. He neither worked out for the Seattle Seahawks, nor travelled to Baltimore to visit the Ravens, as some organizations have reported.

Perhaps a number more telling than the catches (304), receiving yards (4,264) and touchdown grabs (44) that Mellette compiled during his college career — he ranks second in Southern Conference history in each category — was the 4.45-second time he recorded in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine.

“I think he really opened some eyes and surprised some people with that,” Whitney said. “I think he ran faster than people thought he would and I think he showed some things that people may not have realized prior to seeing him up close. And I think he showed that at the Senior Bowl, too. He was able to get behind some defensive backs there.”

The most frequently asked question Elon football coach Jason Swepson has fielded on Mellette during recent weeks isn’t about hands, route running or ability to separate from defenders.

Special teams have been the topic. As in, can Mellette play special teams?

“I was like, ‘Yeah. He’s big enough to stay in to block for a punt and he’s fast enough to release and go get a punt,’ ” Swepson said, recalling the first time he answered that inquiry. “I think he’s going to have to do all of that stuff to hang on, prove his worth and then show his talent.

“Whoever gets him is going to get a good one. But Aaron’s going to have to adjust and play some special teams, and I think he understands that.”

When the Colts worked out Mellette earlier this month, Indianapolis receivers coach Charlie Williams, the former North Carolina assistant coach, stopped by to see Swepson, the former North Carolina State assistant coach, and raved about Mellette’s strong body and skill level.

“I think the question mark (for NFL teams) is the talent that he went against,” Swepson said. “So what it comes down to is, who falls in love with him. You never know, but those middle to late rounds are all about who’s going to fall in love with you.”

Mellette, hanging at home in Sanford, went golfing for the first time Thursday. He played a round with his cousins and uncle.

More family-and-friends fun is on tap today and Saturday. His grandmother will be cooking piles of food as his inner circle gathers at his aunt’s house “out in a big, old area in the country” to track the draft, engage in video-game battles and simply fellowship in general.

Mellette said he has no preference which team drafts him.

It was a year ago, when he was working at an Elon baseball game, that his cell phone started buzzing with incoming calls and text messages.

Brian Quick, the Appalachian State receiver who Mellette dueled with on several memorable occasions, had been taken early in the 2012 draft — the St. Louis Rams made Quick the opening selection of the second round.

That night brought a faraway goal, off in the distance for so long, rocketing closer to Mellette’s doorstep.

Now, it’s here. It’s reality. And it’s knocking.

“It seems like that happened just a couple months ago,” Mellette said, referring to the Rams’ pick of Quick last April. “It’s crazy how fast time goes when you’re having fun. Hopefully you’ll have people calling your phone, saying, ‘Did you see where Mellette went?’ ”